NEP 2020: State institutions must consider offering bilingual education for future lawyers and judges

Published on:

31 Jul 2020, 1:30 am

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 approved by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday provides that the State institutions offering law education must consider offering bilingual education for future lawyers and judges – in English and in the language of the State in which the law programme is situated.
This, according to NEP 2020, is to alleviate delay in legal outcomes consequent to need for translation.
NEP 2020 also aims to restructure legal education so that it can become globally competitive, adopting best practices and embracing new technologies for wider access to justice and timely delivery of justice.
"At the same time, it must be informed and illuminated with Constitutional values of Justice – Social, Economic, and Political – and directed towards national reconstruction through instrumentation of democracy, rule of law, and human rights", the NEP 2020 provides.
The curricula for legal studies, according to the NEP 2020, must reflect socio-cultural contexts along with, in an evidence-based manner, the history of legal thinking, principles of justice, the practice of jurisprudence, and other related content appropriately and adequately.
Further, NEP 2020 seeks to discourage the practice of setting up stand-alone technical universities, health science universities, legal and agricultural universities, or institutions in these or other fields.
It adds no new stand-alone institutions will be permitted except in specific fields as per national needs.
All existing stand-alone professional educational institutions, as per the NEP 2020, will have to become multi-disciplinary institutions by 2030, either by opening new departments or by operating in clusters.